_Nicola Valley and Fraser River_
Coyote was powerful in magic, and therefore he was sent into the
world by Old One. He spent much time traveling in the Shuswap and
Okanogan countries. It is said that he lived with Old One before
coming to earth, and that after he finished his work—as some say—he
went back to Old One. But others say that Old One built him a house
of transparent ice and put inside of it a log of wood which burns
forever. The aurora is the light of Coyote’s fire, shining through
the ice, or the reflection of it cast up by the ice. Coyote can hear
when people speak his name. When he rolls over in his sleep, it
creates the sharp wind which makes the earth so cold.
Coyote lived for many years in Nicola Valley. He hunted elk and deer
in the winter time, and in the early fall he fished for salmon about
six miles above Spence’s Bridge where he had a weir across the
Thompson River. Even yet it is called “Coyote’s Weir.”
[Illustration: Carved Handles of Horn Spoons
Beautiful examples of early Indian art
_From “Memoirs, American Museum of Natural History”_]
Now when Coyote was traveling about on earth, he gave names to all
parts of the country. He changed many things. He made hills and
plains wherever he saw fit. He placed bushes and trees here and
there, and narrowed or widened the river, and made cañons and
waterfalls and rapids just as he pleased.
Coyote even made the various tribes to speak different languages.
Formerly there were no salmon in the interior of the country because
the coast people kept them all. There was a dam across both the
Fraser and the Columbia rivers. When Coyote had traveled through the
Shuswap country, he went down the Fraser and changed himself into a
piece of wood in the cañon and floated downstream until stopped by
the fish dam. Then he broke down the dam of the four skookums who
prevented the salmon from coming up the river. Then he went ashore.
Now Coyote led the salmon up the main waters of the Fraser and
through the tributary streams. He traveled along the river banks and
they followed him. He went up the Thompson River and the North
Thompson.
Then Coyote went down to the mouth of the Columbia River where four
skookums had dammed the river. He changed himself to a piece of
wood, as he had at the Fraser River, and floated down against the
dam. They picked it up, saying, “This will make a fine dish.” They
shaped it into a salmon dish. Then they put salmon on it. But all
the salmon they put on it disappeared. The skookums became afraid of
the dish, and they threw it into the fire.
Suddenly, in just a moment, the skookums heard a baby’s wail from
the fire. There it was. They picked up the little thing hastily.
They said, “How did it get there?” yet they were all skookums.
Now Coyote grew very rapidly. Soon he was running about. The
skookums told him not to touch four baskets which stood there. But
Coyote grew very rapidly indeed, and one day when they went out to
get firewood, he opened them all. Out of the four baskets came
flies, wasps, wind, and smoke. That is why flies and wasps always
appear during the salmon season, and why the winds at that season
always blow up river.
When Coyote had opened the baskets, he went out to the fish dam. He
said, “Henceforth, there shall be no dam here, and the salmon shall
ascend the river!”
Coyote led the salmon up the Columbia. Hair Seal went almost as far
as the Falls of the Columbia with him. The Coyote pushed him in the
water and told him that sometimes he could come up as far as that
point.
Then Coyote sent the salmon into all the tributaries of the
Columbia.
The broken dam at the mouth of the Fraser River now forms the cañon.